Introduction

Rakken is an entrepreneurial app for asset rental, Robert (entrepreneur and project investor), came up with a business idea, and he wrote it down in a 5-page paper, that later on turned into an exciting app.

My Role

They gave us the branding which we work with, and then we had to make some adjustments, I lead the product from there to the final MVP delivery.

Problem

For many people around the world, and especially Latin Americans, having 2 jobs or diversifying income to pay bills has become a necessity. On the other hand, we live in a world in which there are more and more products with planned obsolescence. This project aims to help people give life to those items that are usually stored, and thus be able to generate extra income.

Challenge

There was one point in particular that increased the difficulty, and that was the expected delivery time for an app of such characteristics (8 months for an MVP).

Hands on

Given tools.

It was a digital marketing agency that first came to us for help with an app development. Where they had already presented a proposed logo, colors, and a look and feel for the app:

It had some inconsistencies though, like rounded and squared buttons, so I proposed a few changes and using a framework with some tweaks to gain some time.

Afterwards, we offered to do research to collect data that would help us achieve a better user experience and cover potential user' pain points. Unfortunately, we had a negative response, due to the defined delivery times, they gave us some data and apps for reference so that we could start working from there.

Design Thinking

Our goal was to create an app that could meet customer expectations. However, in our experience launching applications, we knew that an idea that has not yet been tested to really meet the needs of users based on data far from beliefs makes the difference between a long-lasting and successful app and a project stalled as a "good idea".
As we could with the help of some friends we brainstormed and researched to find different approaches to solve the following:

• - Product Categories
• - Product Search
• - Search Range
• - Search Filters
• - Rental Process
• - Deliveries
• - Product & User safety

Tha´t what defined our product roadmap

The journey

What kind of assets could I put on rent?

We took as reference different apps and e-commerce sites for product categorizing. According to our research, we established 19 main categories that would, later on, have subcategories so users could navigate easily in them. Additionally post on the homepage the most popular ones:

Searching for the right asset.

Another finding from our surveys was that location plays an important role for most products one could be looking to rent. Users would instead rent something they can pick up quickly from a near location. So we worked on a map range approach in our design offer so the user could easily pick an option closest to their location.

As mentioned previously, location plays a BIG role for assets, but also PRICE, REVIEWS, and other useful FILTERS that we put together.

I've found it!

Once users find a suitable location and a reasonable price, it’s time for them to go deeper into the product details and tap on RENT NOW! - We worked on presenting all the features users look for in a product according to our research: price, availability, delivery process, reviews, FAQ.

I rented an asset, how am I supposed to get it?

This was a particularly difficult task to do. In contrast to product buyal, where the delivery process is a one-way only, when you rent an asset you expect to get it back. Therefore I implemented a step-confirmation process where the lessee confirms that he has sent the product, the lessor that he has received it, and finally the same return process, the lessor confirms that he has sent it and the lessee that he has received it back. They can finally rate each other.

I want to publish a product.

We decided to go by the hand with users willing to put an asset for rent, offering them useful tips to publish products, and an easy step-by-step rental process.

Project Status

We iterated several design and development sprints, but by May 2020th with the pandemic the project was abruptly stopped, with an alpha version of the software just released. It is said that it’ll be resumed by 2023.